The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

The surprise in this category came from Wendy’s “pico de gallo” loud-mouth, who actually received the highest number of nominations in this category from the initial reader submissions. But with only 9.15% of the final vote, he was — probably to the relief of both him and his agent — at the back of the pack when it came time for people to vote.

MOST ANNOYING ANIMATED SPOKESTHING
This one came as a genuine surprise to us. The General (of the insurance company with the same name) came out of nowhere with 32.7% to beat the heavily favored Charmin Bears with their prickly, toilet paper-snagging butts (25.8%) along with Geico’s squealing pig (25.2%). Michelin’s bizarre commercial featuring animated road kill dancing in the streets came in last (6.8%), but we’d have to wonder how that spot would have fared if it had been placed in the Creepiest Commercial category.

In the end, it looks like readers just didn’t want to imagine helmet-haired Johnson taking pills to enhance his… jimmy.

CREEPIEST COMMERCIAL
Speaking of imagery just ruining it for everyone, that’s the best way to explain the runaway victory of Liberator Medical’s catheter commercial. Not only is the word “catheter” enough to make many people cross their legs awkwardly, the ad’s opening line of “I had to reuse catheters for the rest of my life” sent chills down the spines (and up the urethras) of 46.37% of the voters. Liberator’s 20% defeat of second-place Old Navy was by far the largest margin of victory in all of WAIA 2010.

Well folks, that’s it for the first ever Worst Ad In America Awards.
We had a lot of fun; learned a little about each other and most importantly, no one got hurt.

UPDATE: With the help of our dear friends at Consumer Reports, we now present to you the winning ad in all it’s glory — complete with commentary by Bob Markovich, Home & Yard Editor. As you can see, his title should really be “Vice President of Awesome.”

Thanks again to everyone who voted, and to the staff of Consumer Reports for lending a hand and, well, tolerating us.